page_title: John Hampden Grammar School
section_title: John Hampden and Marlow Hill: 1966–present
hierarchical_section_title: John Hampden Grammar School / History / John Hampden and Marlow Hill: 1966–present
caption_attribution_description: English: Front of JHGS
context_page_description: John Hampden Grammar School is a selective state boys' grammar school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is named after the local Member of Parliament and English Civil War commander John Hampden. In June 2011, the school became an Academy.
  Established as the Schools of Science and Art in 1893, it is situated on Marlow Hill to the south of the town and has a capacity of about 1,150 boys aged between 11 and 18.
context_section_description: The boys remained at Easton Street as Wycombe Technical High School for a further 10 years before moving to the present site, the school playing fields at the top of Marlow Hill in 1966. Most of the valuable historic reminders of the early days of the Technical Institute ended up on a bonfire in the massive clearing out operation when the school moved to Marlow Hill. The only exceptions to this were the headmaster's chair, the headmaster's table, engraved with the school motto, and a carved set of 12 lockers. The lockers were designed in 1919 by Mr Shaw Wilson, head of the wood carving department and created by wounded soldiers who had returned from the war. Inscribed on the cornice are the words "They counted not their lives dear unto themselves."
  The name was changed to John Hampden School in 1970 and John Hampden Grammar School in 1984. More recent developments gave the school a new façade in September 1995 and the following January work was completed on a sixth-form block to provide specialist teaching rooms, private study rooms, a common room and a new library. In 2002, funding from the Wolfson Foundation allowed a new language teaching facility and science laboratory to be opened.
  In 2006 a new classroom block, used mainly for mathematics teaching, and a sports hall were opened by former Arsenal goalkeeper Bob Wilson. This in turn allowed for an extension of the music department and development of a music studio.
  On 4 November 2010, a gas explosion occurred in the caretaker's house on the premises. In the incident, the school's caretaker was airlifted to hospital with serious burns and the school evacuated. After the explosion the school raised money for the caretaker in his recovery by means of a Mufti Day where the pupils came to school in their own clothes as opposed to the standard uniform.
  On 1 June 2011 Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, approved the school's application to become an Academy. Also in 2011, a food technology room was opened. A proposal was made to relocate a Synthetic Turf Pitch, which was at the time located at the Handy Cross leisure centre, to the JHGS site as part of a wider redevelopment of the leisure centre. Construction work was underway as of October 2013, and was in use by late January 2014.
  In 2013, an extension to the Sixth Form block incorporating a new library was built.
  In May 2019, a planning application was submitted for the construction of a new three storey classroom block on the front of the site. The project was initially announced in December 2018, when the school received around £3m of funding from the Department for Education's selective school expansion fund, which proved controversial.
caption: The school in 2008, before the addition of the sixth form block in 2013.
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